Phantom Lover

Another image worked its way into his mind. The child. Dinah. He had talked to her, drawn solace from her, given her comfort. At least he thought he had, though he couldn’t bring any of their recent conversations into sharp focus. But he sensed a connection with her. A longing. A need to keep her safe and to protect her.

It was part of the guilt.

But that wasn’t why he had gone to her room. Over and over. He needed to see her, to watch her sleep and to assure himself that she was still safe.

Quickly, he found his way down from the cliff, into the house, into the child’s bedroom, where he stood beside her bed, gazing down at her.

She stirred in her sleep but didn’t waken. He reached out a hand, then let it fall back to his side. Better not to disturb her now. He would let her be.

But the woman…

He would go to the woman. She had come back to him at last. The thought of her set off a humming in his head. An eagerness. An urgency. A need to recapture the past.

BREE’S EYES SNAPPED open.

Fear leaped inside her chest as she fought to remember where she was. Then, from below her, she heard the crashing of waves against solid rock, and recent events flashed through her mind: the flight from Baltimore, the drive from San Francisco, Ravencrest and everyone she had encountered since arriving at this cold, massive house.

Her jaw clenched. She made an effort to relax and almost succeeded, until it registered that the room was dark, except for a small beam of moonlight filtering through a crack at the edge of the drapes.

But she’d deliberately left the light on in the bathroom. Why wasn’t it burning now? Had the electricity gone off all over the house, or had someone turned off the light in her private quarters?

A tremor rippled across her skin as her gaze shot to the door that led to the hallway. It was closed.

Mentally, she went over her actions before going to bed. She’d been so tired she could barely function, but she did remember locking the door.

Under the covers, her nails dug into her palms as her hands clenched. Maybe that had awakened her—the small noise of the latch springing open. Or had someone come in another way?

Silently she damned herself for falling into bed without thinking things through. She should have checked the closet for hidden passages. And she should have fetched the gun from her suitcase.

It wasn’t an ordinary gun. In today’s climate she never would have risked trying to pack a regular handgun in her luggage. This was a special model designed by Randolph Security, a weapon that came apart into innocuous-looking pieces. She should have put it together, but she simply hadn’t thought she’d need the gun in her locked bedroom.

Now she lay very still under the covers, her eyes slitted, trying to look as though she was still asleep. Her gaze flicked to the bathroom door, to the closet, probing the shadows, as she fought the feeling that the walls were pressing in around her.

She saw no one, heard no one, yet she sensed she was no longer alone in the room. The air around her seemed to have thickened so that it was difficult to take in a full breath. And she was sure that somebody or something was watching her.

Strangely, her body felt drugged, and she was afraid that if she tried to move an arm or a leg, it would be impossible to make the muscles work. All she could do was lie here, waiting for something to happen, her breath shallow.

Earlier, on the access road leading to the mansion, mist had slithered in white tendrils along the blacktop. Now, somehow, that same mist had crept into the bedroom, spreading across the floor like a white, undulating river of vapor.

The effect was eerie and so totally out of her experience that she could only stare at the foglike wisps while the edge of panic sank its sharp claws into her.

She knew a scream was locked in her throat. Yet at the same time, she felt a kind of humming anticipation. Something was going to happen. Was already happening.

A cloud drifted across the moon and the almost nonexistent light around her faded to black. A small gasp escaped her lips, a mere puff of air. If she could have made her muscles work, she would have sprung off the bed and dashed toward the door.

But her limbs were heavy, heavy as sandbags. At the same time, a feverish expectation swelled inside her until she felt she would explode if something didn’t happen.

Please. The supplication was only in her mind. She didn’t have the power to speak out loud as she lay there with her heart thumping inside her chest. Slowly, inexorably, she sensed someone coming toward her. It was a man. She didn’t hear his footsteps, but she detected his clean male scent mixed with the smell of soap and spicy aftershave. The scent she had caught outside on the driveway. Only more potent.

And suddenly her anticipation was stronger than her fear.

She knew he had come to a stop beside the bed, knew he was bending over her. In the depths of the darkness she couldn’t see him, but she knew very well he was there. She should order him out of her bedroom. Yet the words stayed locked in her throat.

The air around her stirred and she felt his warm sweet breath against her face. For heartbeats, nothing more happened. Then she felt a gentle pressure against her lips.

It was a light kiss, butterfly light, brushing back and forth. A caress that teased and tantalized her senses even as it set off a shiver that was part sensual response and part fear.

For the moment at least, fear won, and she found her voice. “No.”

He didn’t accept the denial. Instead he absorbed the word of protest from her lips. Deliberately, he intensified the kiss, increased the breathless feeling in her chest as his lips moved over hers with practiced male assurance.

Her eyes drifted closed. Her heart stopped and then started again in overtime. She wanted to lift her arms. To push him away? To pull him close? She couldn’t say which, and she did neither. She only lay there with her eyes closed, drawn into the experience until she was returning the kiss—tentatively at first and then with more passion as her need for him grew stronger.

For a long time their lips were the only point of contact. As he sensed her acceptance, his mouth opened, became more possessive. He was a skilled lover who knew what he was doing, knew how to surprise and tease. The kiss deepened, then became momentarily more shallow. His tongue played with the sensitive tissue at the insides of her lips, then probed into the corners.

When he caught her lower lip between his teeth and gently nipped at her, she heard a small moan escape her throat.

Her response seemed to please him. He touched her then, his fingers stroking her cheeks, her jawline, her neck, moving downward, sending tingles of sensation over her skin.

He slid his hands under the covers, his fingers skimming the warm skin of her shoulders, stopping to play with the straps of her gown, which brought another small moan from her.

She found her voice, enough voice for one word. “Troy?”

He didn’t answer. She didn’t even know if it was him. The only thing she knew was that this was neither of the other men she had met this evening. It couldn’t be.

His lips left hers to flutter soft kisses over her closed eyelids, her brows, the tender line where her hair met her cheek. She felt his warm breath against her skin.

“Troy?” she asked again, her voice high and breathy as she responded to him.

Again he remained silent, never stopping the kisses and touches. His skin must have heated in response to her because the wonderful scent of his body had intensified.

She was enveloped in the sensual spell he was weaving. She wanted more from him.

As if he knew her desires, his hands slipped lower, playing with the edge of her gown where it rested against the tops of her breasts.

The kiss had started like a whisper of sensation against her lips. His touch was like that now. Light and playful. Teasing, even.

She responded with a flood of tingling warmth spreading downward through her body to the hollow place that had opened up inside her.

She could imagine her face, the dazed, drugged look. She no longer felt the bed beneath her body. Instead she seemed to float on the surface of a deep, warm pool of sensuality. But down in the far depths she felt doubt stirring. In some part of her mind she knew that this was wrong. It had to be wrong. Whether this man was Troy or not, he had come to her in the night without announcing his name or his intentions. He had come to her bed like a phantom lover.

The dark image was powerful in its dampening effect. The fear that had momentarily receded into the background leaped to the front of her mind again.

All at once, she felt as if she’d been under an evil, sensual spell. And through her own will, she had been released. Her eyes flew open. It was still dark in the room and she couldn’t see the man who hovered over her. But her hands moved swiftly and surely as they came up to push him away.

For a millisecond she thought she felt the resistance of his warm flesh, of muscle and bone. Then her hands pressed upward through chilled, empty air. He was gone. Vanished, as silently and as swiftly as he had come to her.

Chapter Three